Transportation

Getting a federal tax credit for buying an electric vehicle is about to get a lot easier — or at least, a lot faster.

Starting in January, EV car shoppers won’t have to wait until tax season to pocket the incentive, worth up to $7,500. Instead, the credit will be available as cash in hand on the day of purchase — and it’ll be available regardless of the size of a customer’s tax bill.

That’s how Congress wanted these incentives to work when they passed them as part of the Inflation Reduction Act. But when it was rolled out last year, it still required EV buyers to claim their credit when they filed their taxes, a more burdensome route. That’s because the IRS needed time to come up with a new system to make the credits work as point-of-sale rebates instead.

That new system to claim the credit was announced Friday. Here’s what to know.

It’s all meant to happen at the dealership

All the requirements for qualifying for the tax credit still apply — for both EV buyers and automakers.

That means there’s still an income cap for buyers and there are limits to how much cars can cost to qualify for the credit. And not all models from automakers will qualify because of complex rules about how the cars are produced, including where the battery components come from.

But for buyers who qualify, actually accessing the credit will be a matter of extra paperwork at the dealership, instead of a monthslong wait for savings delivered through the tax filing process.

Dealers will register with the IRS and confirm that a vehicle qualifies for the tax credit, using the vehicle identification number.

That addresses one major customer concern. As of now, buyers have to do a lot of homework to figure out whether an EV they want to buy would qualify for a tax credit — navigating through a myriad of complicated and shifting rules.

Delivering money faster — and to more people

Buyers will also now have the option to get the credit instantly instead of waiting for the next year’s tax season.

Those purchasing an EV would need to attest that they meet the individual requirements — like that they’re purchasing the vehicle for personal use, they’re not a dependent on anyone’s taxes, and they’re under the income limit.

Then they’d transfer the tax credit to the dealership, and in exchange, the dealer will either give them that much in cash or as a down payment toward the vehicle. The dealer will submit documentation to the IRS, and the IRS says dealers will be reimbursed “promptly” — within 72 hours or so.

Significantly, a buyer taking the credit at the dealership can get it regardless of what their tax bill is that year. Previously, a buyer would need to owe $7,500 in taxes in a given year to get the full benefit of the credit.

That functioned like an income minimum, since many low- and middle-income families owe less than that in taxes. It was also just another headache for people trying to figure out how much the credit was actually worth to them.

Now, even families with no tax liability at all can get the tax credit.

Meanwhile, tax credits for used electric vehicles (worth 30% of the price of the vehicle, up to $4,000) will also be available at the point of sale, through the same system of transferring the credit to the dealership. There is a lower income cap for that program, and some additional criteria for the vehicles.

There are caveats, though

Things can still go wrong. The IRS says there are provisions in place to prevent fraud and deception on the part of dealerships, and dealers can only participate in this program if they’re current on their own taxes.

And there’s one concrete situation where taxpayers may need to give back the credit.

Buyers can qualify under the income cap using either the current year’s income or the previous year’s, whichever is lower. If it turns out their income was over the cap in both years, and they already received the tax credit through a dealership, they would need to repay the tax credit to the IRS.

The income limits for a new vehicle are $150,000 adjusted gross income for an individual, $225,000 for a head of household and $300,000 for a married couples filing jointly or surviving spouses.

For a used vehicle, the income caps are $75,000 for an individual, $112,500 for heads of households, and $150,000 for married couples filing jointly or surviving spouses.

The new system could make a big difference

Though this will simplify things for EV shoppers, the tax credits still remain complicated as the government juggles both encouraging people to buy EVs while also pushing car companies to move more of their supply chains to the U.S.

But a point-of-sale rebate should at least make the credits less of a guessing and waiting game.

The changes “will make a tremendous difference,” says Elizabeth Krear, the vice president of the electric vehicle practice at auto data giant JD Power. “That’s $7,500 right there at the time of the transaction — versus having to finance at a higher price, which increases the monthly payments, and then waiting for that tax rebate down the line sometime in April.”

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Alaska Seaplanes announced on Wednesday that it will close its Petersburg and Wrangell locations at the end of the month. Alaska Seaplanes is the only commuter airline service in competition with Alaska Airlines in Southeast Alaska.

General Manager Carl Ramseth says the decision did not come lightly.

“It was the difficult decision that came, it came after much deliberation — months and months of deliberation,” he said. “[I] think this is probably the hardest decision I’ve been involved in personally in my 30 plus years of aviation and Southeast. It just was not our plan to leave.”

The closure will take effect for passengers on Oct. 31 and for cargo on Oct. 28.

The airline offers twice-daily flights between Petersburg and Juneau, which allow residents to take day trips to the capital. Those will end, along with the triangular flights that connect Sitka, Wrangell and Petersburg three times a week.

Alaska Seaplanes began serving Petersburg in April of 2021 and Wrangell in May of 2022. Ramseth says that when Seaplanes starts serving a community, they have a three-year plan to allow time to build up a presence in the town. This is only the second time Seaplanes has pulled out of a community before that three-year period is up.

“With Wrangell and Petersburg, it’s just bottom line, the traffic and the ridership didn’t grow as we’d hoped,” said Ramseth.

But low ridership isn’t the only factor. Alaska Seaplanes also rely on carrying cargo. That brings in more business in smaller communities like Tenakee Springs and Klawock because they are not serviced by Alaska Airlines. Ramseth says that isn’t true for Wrangell and Petersburg.

“One challenge that Wrangell and Petersburg have compared to most of our other communities is that we don’t carry any mail or UPS, and we don’t have so much cargo into those communities,” he said. “So that affects the bottom line too.” 

Seaplanes has two part-time employees in Wrangell. Petersburg has one full-time and two part-time workers. All were informed of the closure last week. Ramseth says that while there are jobs with the company for them in other communities, all employees want to stay where they are.

The closure is indefinite, although Ramseth says he would love to be able to serve Wrangell and Petersburg again in the future if factors change.

Alaska Seaplanes isn’t the first commuter airline service to call it quits after a short stint in central Southeast. Island Air ended its Petersburg to Juneau flights after just nine months in 2018. Scott Van Valin, co-owner and director of operations, told KFSK at the time that there was not enough passenger demand on those flights.

The Alaska Marine Highway’s route to Prince Rupert, British Columbia has languished in recent years, as pandemic restrictions, fleet issues, and low staffing kept the route between Southeast and Canada from running regularly.

But false information circulated on social media the first weekend in October caused panic about the route ending altogether.

The Alaska Department of Transportation, which oversees the Alaska Marine Highway, says the state ferry route to Prince Rupert, B.C. isn’t going anywhere.

“We haven’t discontinued Prince Rupert on a permanent basis,” says Sam Dapcevich, a spokesperson for the Department of Transportation. “We’re not going there right now primarily because we don’t have the crew resources to support sending the Kennicott there. But we are committed to reopening that port in the future when we have resources available to do so.”

A Facebook post written as a news release by a user named Robbie Marionson on Oct. 1 stated that staff and management at the Prince Rupert terminal were clearing out personal effects because the terminal was closing for good. It wasn’t a real news release. The post has since been deleted.

The post caused an uproar on the social media site and prompted official responses from Southeast state legislator Rep. Dan Ortiz and the Alaska Department of Transportation.

In short, it’s not true.

The Prince Rupert terminal is not closing for good. But it is unmanned right now. Dapcevich says that in recent months, the terminal had been maintained by part-time contractors, but their contract expired.

He says the marine highway system is working to sort out a new contract.

The fake press release stated the terminal was being shuttered because the Alaska Marine Highway management allowed a critical international safety certification to expire for the Kennicott. It’s one of the largest ferries in the state’s fleet, and one of two that’s able to dock in Canada. The other is the Matanuska, which is in major overhaul. Without enough crew for the Kennicott, both ferries have stayed tied up in Ketchikan for months.

Because the Prince Rupert terminal is an international stop, Alaska ferries that tie up there have to meet certain international standards, set by the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea. Those SOLAS standards encompass a few requirements, including how the ship itself is built. That’s why only the Kennicott and Matanuska can serve the route — they’re the two Alaska ferries built to the proper standard.

Some Kennicott certificates that are required for international travel did expire in April. Those SOLAS certificates are overseen by the U.S. Coast Guard. But Dapcevich says that doesn’t mean the Kennicott’s SOLAS certification itself is expiring.

“The ship was built to SOLAS standards, and we maintain it and keep that safety standard in place,” Dapcevich says. “So there’s no license to expire or anything like that. The ship has its certification.”

Dapcevich says it’s standard practice to wait to renew SOLAS and other sailing certificates until a ship is out of the yard and back in service, since many of the certificates only last 12 months. A Coast Guard spokesperson confirmed that it’s common for ships to wait to request renewed certificates until out of the yard.

All in all, the post from Marionson contained elements of truth. The Prince Rupert terminal is unmanned because of an expired contract, but not because it’s being abandoned, the state says. The Kennicott is in the shipyard and doesn’t have updated certificates, but that’s standard practice for ships that aren’t in service. The weak service on the route has left people stranded in recent months, but the Alaska Department of Transportation continues to publicly state it intends to resume service to Prince Rupert in the future.

The marine highway’s website states the Kennicott is expected to return to service in mid-November, although that doesn’t necessarily include a Prince Rupert stop.

Marionson did not respond to a request for comment.

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody’s around to hear it, does it make a sound?

Maybe that’s best left to the philosophers. But if hundreds of trees tumble off a mountainside and into the ocean — who would find out about it first?

In remote Southeast Alaska, that would be mariners and pilots. They were the first to notice the aftermath of a huge landslide near LeConte Bay in the last week of September. Personnel at the nearest ranger district, in Petersburg, were unaware that it had happened at all.

The Tongass National Forest spans 16.7 million acres — the largest National Forest in the United States. It’s a lot to keep track of.

Doug Riemer is the owner of Nordic Air, a Petersburg-based charter flight business. He was piloting a tour around LeConte Bay when he noticed the telltale signs of a slide.

“Mostly just timber, everywhere,” said Riemer. “This slide was pretty dramatic because it didn’t just land in one spot. It just brought a whole bunch of trees down and it just ripped all the branches off of them and pulled the bark off of them and everything like that — littered trees all over.”

That debris can be a dangerous problem. Floating wood can damage or even sink small vessels and marine infrastructure. Glorianne Wollen is Petersburg’s harbormaster. She says she and her team have been getting reports about the slide from northbound vessels all week. And now, they’re trying to fish out as much flotsam as they can before it can clog up the Wrangell Narrows in front of town.

“It was mostly big, big root wads,” said Wollen. “We knew something that let loose because there was rocks and sand and dirt and stuff that was still attached. But we ended up seeing it and reacting as it occurs.”

Landslides are alarming when they happen, even in the most remote areas. Climate change and the resulting wetter weather are making them more common in Southeast Alaska.

Brian Bezenek is a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Juneau. He says Southcentral-Southeast has seen record-breaking rains in the last few weeks, and it’s probably no coincidence that the slide happened when it did.

“There was an atmospheric river that was pushing through the central-southcentral Panhandle during that time frame,” said Bezenek. “It just turned out that it was a very rainy end of the week, across the area. Petersburg reported 4.47 inches on the 21st — which, looking at the records, would be the rainiest day on record for that day. Over those two days, we’ve received 7.02 inches.”

To put that number in perspective, the normal monthly precipitation in the Petersburg area is 14.35 inches of rain. It got half of that in a single weekend.

Bezenek says those heavy rains will probably bear down for weeks to come. But there’s no telling how long it’ll take for all the debris to get flushed away.

A plane flown by U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola’s husband was loaded with more than 500 pounds of moose meat and a rack of antlers before the crash near St. Mary’s earlier this month that killed him, investigators say.

The National Transportation Safety Board released its preliminary report Thursday on the Sept. 12 crash that killed 57-year-old Eugene “Buzzy” Peltola Jr. The report, compiled after an NTSB team traveled from Washington, D.C. to Alaska, sheds new light on both the crash and Peltola’s death as he awaited an overnight rescue flight.

According to the report, Peltola had been flying the Piper PA-18-150 Super Cub on the second of two flights that evening to ferry moose meat to Holy Cross. A group of five hunters had camped near a landing strip about 80 miles northwest of Holy Cross, and started to load the plane at about 7:40 p.m. on Sept. 12 with the second load.

“During the next hour, the pilot and the hunters loaded the airplane with the meat,” investigators wrote. “One of the hunters reported that the airplane held about 50 to 70 pounds more meat than during the previous flight. The meat was strapped into the rear passenger seat area with both the seatbelt and chord and was loaded into the airplane’s belly pod, which did not have tie-down provisions. The pilot then tied the antlers to the right wing strut; the antlers were cupped outward and perpendicular to the direction of flight.”

Peltola also told one of the hunters that he expected to be at reserve fuel levels when he reached Holy Cross. The two also noted that intermittent wind gusts were passing over the airfield.

“Members of the group reported to the pilot that the wind was gusting much stronger at the departure end of the airstrip,” investigators wrote.

When Peltola took off at about 8:45 p.m., one of the hunters recorded a video of his takeoff from the airstrip. Investigators noted that the plane rolled about 20 degrees right then leveled after takeoff, with no abnormal engine noise or smoke seen in the video.

“The hunters noticed that the ground roll was slightly longer than before, and that the airplane appeared to be more ‘labored’ than during the previous flight,” investigators wrote. “They stated that, as the airplane reached the end of the airstrip, it pitched up and turned sharply to the right but, rather than climbing as before, the airplane flew behind the adjacent ridgeline and out of view.”

At first the hunters thought the Super Cub’s takeoff was successful, according to investigators. But when the plane didn’t reappear beyond the ridgeline, they climbed it and found the crash site. One of them sent an SOS on an InReach satellite communicator, then pulled Peltola from the crashed plane.

“Once he was removed, they covered the pilot in blankets, and set a heater upwind to keep him warm,” investigators wrote. “The pilot was talking and did not appear to be in pain, but he became less responsive during the next 2 hours, after which time the pilot no longer had a pulse.”

The Alaska Air National Guard sent a rescue helicopter and a rescue plane to the crash site from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage. Guard officials have said the aircraft had to refuel in McGrath, with the helicopter arriving at the crash site at 1:50 a.m. on Sept. 13.

Investigators at the crash site, including representatives from plane manufacturer Piper and engine maker Lycoming, found no initial sign of engine failure. The propeller had separated during the crash, with divots in the ground marking the impact points of its right wingtip and main landing gear.

“The airplane cargo was weighed at the accident site, revealing a load of about 520 pounds that consisted primarily of moose meat and a set of moose antlers,” investigators wrote. “About 150 pounds of meat was found in the forward section of the belly pod; the remaining portions were firmly secured in the rear cabin seating area. The antlers were secured to the inboard side of the right-wing strut.”

Clint Johnson, the NTSB’s Alaska chief, stressed Thursday morning that no conclusions have yet been reached on the cause of the plane’s crash. Investigators are examining the Super Cub’s loading, he said, but are still determining the weight of everything on board – as well as whether the plane was rated for a higher maximum weight than the stock PA-18-150 Super Cub’s 820 pounds.

“Right now, we’re still looking and trying to find the maintenance records for this aircraft. We’re in the process of doing networking with family,” he said. “So we don’t really know whether there was a loading issue or not.”

NTSB meteorologists are planning to model weather conditions at the airstrip, Johnson said, to estimate the strength of the wind gusts during the plane’s takeoff. Investigators are also awaiting results of an autopsy conducted on Peltola.

The next step, according to Johnson, is a closer look at the wrecked plane – which is no longer at the airstrip.

“The wreckage itself has now been removed and brought back to Anchorage,” Johnson said. “And we plan to revisit that wreckage again, to begin the analytical part of the investigation.”

Peltola, a family man and a former Alaska regional director for the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, retired from the position to support his wife’s successful run for Congress. A funeral for him was held in Bethel on Sept. 18, with hundreds of Alaskans in attendance.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

The Alaska Division of Motor Vehicles is considering whether to eliminate the month and date registration stickers that adorn state license plates here.

In a request for information published earlier this month, the division put out an open call for answers, asking about the pros and cons of the idea.

The agency, through a spokesperson, said it didn’t have much to share about the request at this point, but that it’s one of several requests that the department has out.

“This is DMV exploring and trying to learn the landscape,” said Ken Truitt, a spokesperson for the Department of Administration, which controls the DMV.

Public notices show the DMV also investigating the possibility of self-service kiosks “in high-traffic areas,” a mobile application that allows Alaskans to renew licenses and registration remotely, and an artificial intelligence chatbot to answer questions asked of the DMV.

“DMV currently has five RFIs out and is trying to learn what’s available to help DMV modernize and become more digitally orientated,” Truitt said.

The moves follow DMV’s decision to redesign the state’s standard license plate with a new typeface, and the Legislature’s decision to eliminate the requirement that each vehicle carry two license plates. Only a rear license plate is now required.

At least three states have already eliminated the requirement that license plates carry stickers showing the expiration date of a vehicle’s registration.

New Jersey eliminated the requirement in 2004, followed by Connecticut in 2010 and Pennsylvania in 2016. All states still require vehicles to be re-registered on a regular basis — there’s just no physical sign that their registration is up to date.

There may be lessons for Alaska from Pennsylvania’s experience.

At the time Pennsylvania eliminated its stickering program, the state’s Department of Transportation claimed it would save $3.1 million per year in administration costs.

Three years later, a state legislator proposed reinstating the stickering requirement, noting that the number of vehicles registered in the state plunged after the requirement was eliminated.

The plunge in registrations — possibly due to residents dodging the licensing requirement — cost the state $22 million in reduced fee collections in 2017 alone, the legislator said.

At a subsequent legislative hearing, a state official attributed the drop in registrations to normal fluctuations.

A state police official testified that as a result of the change, patrol officers began routinely running license plates through the state’s registration database, increasing the number of citations for unregistered vehicles.

The sticker reinstatement bill failed in Pennsylvania, and the state continues to operate without license plate stickers.

This story originally appeared in the Alaska Beacon and is republished here with permission.